Evidence Based Design: The Open Learning Initiative

ON THIS PAGE:

• Guiding Student Practice
• Interactive Simulations (Try It!)
• Feedback to Students
• Statics Mini Tutor (Try It!)
• Statics Mini Tutor with dynamic scaffolding (Try It!)

Statics is a sophomore level engineering course and lays the foundation for design of mechanical systems. In Statics we study methods of quantifying the forces between parts of mechanical, structural, and biological systems. For example, we use statics to design bridges that will safely withstand all the possible forces on it, including its own weight, traffic, wind, changes in temperature, earthquakes.

Prior to developing the OLI statics course, the OLI course authors conducted extensive research to identify shortcomings in traditional statics instruction, and devised classroom methods that take advantage of known approaches that can facilitate learning (Steif and Dollár 2005, Dollár and Steif 2006). At the same time, the authors, along with others, have been involved in efforts to identify the conceptual difficulties in learning statics and developing a testing instrument, the Statics Concept Inventory, to measure a student’s ability to use key statics concepts in isolation (Steif, 2004; Steif, Dollár, Dantzler, 2005; Steif and Hansen, 2007). Throughout the development and use of the course, we use the Statics Concept Inventory as one instrument to measure the effectiveness of the course.

Learning is an active process. In all OLI courses we promote engagement in ways that help the learner select, integrate and retrieve new knowledge.

In the Statics course, we use short economical sections of expository text interspersed with graphical representations and interactive guided simulations. We give students frequent opportunities to assess their learning and receive targeted feedback as they work through problems. A typical example of a learning sequence from the course is three screens that cover the topic of combining concurrent forces.

Click here to enter the OLI Engineering Statics course and view the 3-page sequence.

Within this short section of the course, the student:

• is given the target learning objectives for the segment.
• experiments with a simulation from the real world.
• is shown the translation of the real world into both the graphical and mathematical represenation.
• reviews a worked example with explanations.
• watches and listens to a "walk through" of the procedure.
• works through a "learn by doing" activity.
• reviews the main points of the segment in the summary.
• works through two "did I get this" assessments both of which provide the student with immediate and targeted feedback.

The digital envrinmont allows us to make forces and their effects visible to students in ways that are not possible in the traditional classroom. In teaching Statics, simulations of motion are critical to conveying the various effects of forces, and the conditions for equilibrium. In a traditional classroom, neither a traditional textbook, nor an instructor, can offer dynamic simulations with parameters which are controlled by the learner seeking to explore relevant phenomena. In the OLI statics course, learners can experiment with the parameters and see the effects of their experimentation in Interactive Guided Simulations such as the ones shown below. We often introduce the guided simulations with a question for the student to answer and follow it with a succinct description of an observation the student should have made.

Try the simulation below:

While frequent and appropriately spaced exploration and practice is essential, interactivity alone is not sufficient; the design of practice is also important. The function of practice is for students to encode the information in relevant ways for future retrieval and use.

Students learn when engaging in problem-solving activities in which they can both succeed and fail, but will get meaningful feedback in either case. In learning-by-doing activities, there is a risk that students will strengthen incorrect knowledge, acquire invalid procedures or strengthen inappropriate connections. Learners need sufficient support so that they do not discover, practice and encode incorrect knowledge. Studies have shown that immediate feedback leads to significant reductions in time taken by students to achieve a desired level of performance (Anderson, Conrad, Corbett; 1989). Learning-by-doing approaches work best when a student has access to support and feedback at exactly the moment that it is needed. The mini tutor below combines simulation with hints and feedback.

Try the mini tutor below.

If you are not sure how to proceed click the hint button. select your answers from the pull down menus and do not hesitate to ask for hints. There are multiple levels of hints for each question, you may continue to ask for hints by clicking the 'get next hint' link at the bottom of the hint window until you reach the final hint that gives you the answer for that step and allows you to continue working on the problem.

Click the image to the left to see a demonstration of the tutor.

The tutor demonstrated to the left and available to use below appears in an advanced section of the OLI Engineering Statics Course on Summing Force Vectors. The tutor is an opportunity for students to do a "self-check" to make sure they understand the concept.

The student is presented with a graphical representation of the problem and asked for the answer. If the student is unsure of the procedure for solving the problem, the first hint provides a link which, when clicked, expands the tutor into the various steps needed to solve the problem. The tutor provides scaffolding to support the student to learn the steps of the procedure when needed. The hints and feedback given by the tutor change depending on which part of the exercise the student is attempting. The tutor recognizes when a student has used the scaffolding and hints. When the student gives the correct answer after having used the scaffolding and hints, the tutor suggests the student to try another problem. The problem statement, hints, feedback and answers are dynamically-generated. The student can work through the tutor multiple times, receiving a different problem each time, until the student is confident that he or she understands the concept and has developed fluency with the procedure. This provides the student with virtually unlimited opportunities for supported practice.

Try the mini tutor below.

If you are not sure how to proceed click the hint button. You may need to click the link in the first hint that expands the tutor into the multiple steps that are required to solve this problem. Type your answers into each box and do not hesitate to ask for hints for each step as you work through the problem. There are multiple levels of hints for each step, you may continue to ask for hints by clicking the 'get next hint' link at the bottom of the hint window until you reach the final hint that gives you the answer for that step and allows you to continue working on the problem.